


Beskar Hearts

by KarmaMayOrMayNotBeOkay



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'll add tags as I think of them, Jedi Younglings (Star Wars), Mandalorian Bait Plo Koon, Other, Parental Plo Koon, Tired Mace Windu, a oneshot for now, because i had zero ideas, i might continue if the brain juice works, mace gets parented for a few seconds, placeholder title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:08:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29915991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KarmaMayOrMayNotBeOkay/pseuds/KarmaMayOrMayNotBeOkay
Summary: Plo Koon is woefully ignorant, and wonderfully parental.People notice.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 49





	Beskar Hearts

Plo glanced back behind his shoulder, recent concern having turned to amusement in the blink of an eye. He was being tailed. By both his usual and an unusual visitor or two. He couldn’t tell yet.

Muffled noises erupted not far off from his position, Plo pretended to ignore them, but drifted in that direction anyways. The sound eased down as he carefully approached. Step by step. A branch broke, and the younglings huddling together behind the low wall suddenly broke free from their positions and ran again, joy shining clear in the force, and giggles erupting in full force with less notable gasps as they panted. 

Plo dropped the slow going façade, and lunged after them, face crinkling into an expression of joy of his own around his goggles. His steps were far more silent, and the first little Twi’lek youngling who had fallen behind hadn’t noticed until Plo had already swung them over his shoulder, they screeched, and clung onto his robes. Plo carefully settled them into a more comfortable position as he resumed his pursuit of the rest of them.

He had almost forgotten the possible tail by the time a brave little Zabrak had tried to save their friend from his clutches. That effort had ended in vain, but it had reminded him of the possibly far more serious situation he might have on his hands. The two wiggling children in his grasp made it hard to focus as he tried to play along with their game and focus on the more serious matter.

It was easy to feint failure to hold onto the two younglings by the time the next reinforcements had come along, the Twi’lek, after being removed from the group, had become tired and simply allowed themselves to be held after a while, but the Zabrak was trying to wiggle persistently, and eagerly took the assistance from his crechemates. The children had overwhelmed him and ran off with the Zabrak, and after they were out of sight, he had carefully lowered to his knees to allow the Twi’lek down. She stared back at him, and rubbed her eyes as if confused.

Plo smiled, and rubbed her shoulders down while she realized what was going on, once he had risen to his full height again, their eyes had blown open again, and they had started to run after the rest of their friends. He had turned back to where he felt the unusual presences, and felt them twist as they realized that Plo knew they were there. He did not smile, but it was close. He was still in a good mood, and he hoped this interaction wouldn’t spoil that.

He approached, carefully, and with the same silent steps he did they younglings. The presences took on a hesitant air, and he carefully focused on that while his physical body repeated the same motions. It was once he had gotten close enough to have possibly seen them that the feelings swapped out for something else, and his feet picked up speed.

A sound emitted from behind a particularly deep arch near the end of the street, and Plo’s ears metaphorically perked up when he figured out just what that squeak had echoed off. His faster pace accelerated, until the Mandalorians couldn’t even bother escaping before Plo had cleared the street, and blocked the arch, smiling all the way.

The two, as he had suspected, temporarily clung to each other before the taller one realized what they were doing, and had let go and shoved away their associate in the same motion. Plo let the two grasp their bearing, as they looked panicked before they simultaneously tried to smooth themselves out. The end result had left them both looking completely rattled, but far more at ease with themselves. 

They both took a turn to glance at him, and wince back bodily. Plo stood there, and simply rose a brow when they both tried to make an attempt to stutter something out. He coughed lightly, and stared them on. They shut up. He smiled, not exactly like they would get his expressions under the mask like say, the younglings down the street would.

“I think you’re a little far from Little Kelbade.” His tone seemed pleasant enough, and definitely not warranting the body language the two in front of him were giving off. They were clearly nervous. One of them tried to speak. “Well, we aren’t exactly fro-” Their companion had very crudely elbowed them in the gut before they could finish their sentence. 

This one had attempted to speak in their place. “We wanted to know what was causing the noise down the road, we just happened to have business nearby.” They struggled to get it out, but still far easier than the Mando gasping through their helmet filter to their left. Plo hesitated, and couldn’t quite manage to think of an appropriate response to that display he had just witnessed.

“Ah. I’m sure. Well, if there's nothing else, may I..?” He tried to excuse himself. The Mandalorians were still reading as nervous in the force, and he dreaded quite how long the affair might drag on. They glanced back at each other, before focusing on him again. “I uh, don’t suppose you might have resources available, for the temple, I mean.” Their tone was nervous, and once they had finished the statement, their force signature twisted in something almost like disappointment, while their companion read something similar, with a twist of exasperation. 

Plo folded his arms into his sleeves, and tried to reply to that politely. “If you’d like to inquire about something about the temple, such as records or testing, you’d best off try the temple itself, we have resources and programs for such things put into place.” His tone was light, but his boots were angled back towards where he had left the crechelings, and their game.

The two had clearly noticed, and they stepped back, slightly embarrassed, Plo inclined his head in their direction, and started off towards where he had left his temporary charges. The force was clouded on Coruscant, but he could still get a rather accurate sense of the feelings present, if he was able to have that much confidence in his own abilities. 

He walked off, and the feelings became far less restrained, light noises making themselves present as well, with the particular muttering of something that didn’t quite make sense in the context of what they had discussed. Simple enough for him to dismiss, and far more so as soon as the impatient younglings had come back into his sight, and he was able to ease down again.

He took a quick headcount, carefully looking for the appendages of everyone that was supposed to be present, once he had located them all, and wrangled them up somewhat, he took one final glance back at the deep arch at the end of the street, where he had quite the unusual encounter.

\--

Plo’s hands were folded into his sleeves, and his expression was carefully blank, leaning more on his typical of something more serene. He was seated across Mace, and wondering quite how he had managed to make his way into that situation. The Master of the Order looked exasperated, which was only slightly better than his usual annoyance with situations that unusually required a similar setup. 

He figured he should at least be somewhat fortunate, that it wasn’t that type of situation, at the very least. He was still blatantly confused, however. He shifted. Mace was completely still across from him, hands on his knees, staring into what he felt was his soul more and more by the second.

Mace finally, thankfully, cleared his throat. Plo was finally able to focus on him without an itch crawling up his spine. The Master of the Order didn’t exactly look entirely in his direction as he began to speak. “So. Run me down on the situation, you take Hawk clan out to Coruscant, a few blocks out from Little Kelbade, and then you encounter some out of place Mandalorians, and they ask you for temple advice?” Mace didn’t sound like he needed the rundown, with his bland tone, but Plo replied anyways, expression somewhat surprised.

“Ah. That sounds about right. We were in the middle of a game when I noticed an unusual presence in the force, I went to investigate, somewhat worried about the crechelings. Then, I encountered the aforementioned Mandalorians. They seemed discontent about something.” He added. His tone was even, but something about what he had said made Mace give him another blank, soul tearing stare.

The man’s throat somehow twisted out a both confused and annoyed sound at the same time. “I have a horrible feeling I’ll regret this but--, can I ask exactly what you were doing with the Hawk clan earlier today?” Mace winced immediately after finishing his sentence. 

Plo was visibly confused. And paused. “I was playing on the street, simply hide and seek with them, they were hiding from me, and I was holding onto them once I found them until their creche mates came to rescue them, why?” His sleeves, still tucked into each other, lowered slightly.

Mace rose a hand to rub at his brow, grumbling. “You’re sometimes horribly oblivious, you know this, yes?” Plo was slightly offended, but tried to take the words to heart, twisting his expression. “I don’t exactly know what you mean in this case.” He truly didn’t, and couldn’t quite understand Mace’s reasoning for asking after his activities. To be fair, he hasn’t even known why he is here quite yet, other than to answer Mace’s questions about the Mandalorian situation.

Mace sighed. “Plo--, you’ve had interactions with Mandalorians before, yes?” Plo paused. “I have, what about it.” Mace twisted his expression and looked to be more exhausted than he had possibly ever seen him before, which might’ve been an achievement, if not for the circumstances. 

Mace unfolded his knees so that he could sit leaning forward without his boots digging into his torso, he used this slightly new angle to make very pointed eye contact with Plo. “I’d think, considering how they act around you, that you’d have noticed the trend by now.” His voice was pointed. Plo paused. “Ah. That.” Mace leaned forward at a verbal confirmation of something, parroting him. “Ah. That.”

Plo fidgeted. “Alright, I could see why that might have something to do with this, though they did actually ask after something Jedi related, rather than stuttering in my directions for a solid two minutes this time.” Plo shrugged helplessly. Mace looked dead inside. “You do realize that the general population of Mandalore tends to rather hate us, right? We don’t want to be seen exhibiting favoritism to one faction over another.” 

Plo immediately protested that. “It’s not exactly like I’m asking for them to come and find me, they simply seek me out themselves, and it’s not necessarily like I can pinpoint them to a singular faction anyways! There’s nothing pointing towards why they’re seeking out me particularly, on the other note!”

Mace looked up at the ceiling, and then back down to the Kel Dor in front of him. “Good for you, I can answer most of those. Your ‘admirers’ tend to be part of an older faction, called the True Mandalorians.” Mace’s mouth twisted at the corner. “And the reason they seek you out specifically is because you are a rather horribly compassionate and wonderful person, and they aren’t blind. Every time you let a clan of children clamber over you, I think they multiply.” Mace sounded like he hadn’t drank anything in a while, Plo poured him a cup of tea.

Mace looked down at the cup, and back at him. “Case in point, I think.” The Korun Master looked exhausted, but lifted up the cup, and took a long drink.


End file.
